Édouard Delessert (15 December 1828 – 27 March 1898) was a French painter, archaeologist and photographer.

Biography

Delessert's parents were Valentine de Laborde, the

socialite A socialite is a person, typically a woman from a wealthy or aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having ...

granddaughter of French businessman and

slave trader The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions o ...

Jean-Joseph de Laborde Jean Joseph de Laborde, Marquis of Laborde (29 January 1724 – 18 April 1794) was a French businessman, slave trader, ''fermier général'' and banker to the king, who turned politician. A liberal, he was guillotined in the French Revolution. ...

, and banker Gabriel Delessert. His mother would go on to be a mistress with several men. Édouard Delessert was at the same time a painter, archaeologist and especially a pioneer of photography using the

calotype Calotype or talbotype is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to record low ...

. He began by studying law before accompanying, in 1850, Félicien de Saulcy on his trip to the

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and

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, then visiting

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Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

and

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. Contributor to the ''

Revue de Paris ''Revue de Paris'' was a French literary magazine founded in 1829 by Louis-Désiré Véron. After two years Véron left the magazine to head the Paris Opera The Paris Opera ( ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was found ...

'' from 1851 to 1858, founder of the critical magazine ''L'Athenaeum'', he embarked on business where he swallowed up a large part of his fortune, before wasting the rest.

Prosper Mérimée Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, an import ...

, who had been his mother's lover, was his mentor in literature and developed, in the letters he addressed to her, some of his aesthetic principles. With the founding of the National Bank of Haiti, Delessert served on the board of directors, receiving funds related to the Haiti indemnity. He died on March 27, 1898, without descendants and was buried in Paris in the

Passy cemetery Passy Cemetery () is a small cemetery in Passy, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. History The current cemetery replaced the old cemetery (''l'ancien cimetière communal de Passy'', located on Rue Lekain), which was closed in 1802. ...

, in the tomb of the Delessert family.

References

External links

* 1828 births 1898 deaths 19th-century French photographers 19th-century French painters French male painters French archaeologists Scientists from Paris Pioneers of photography 19th-century French male artists {{France-photographer-stub